The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the approaches described in this section may not be prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Distributed networks provide access to a variety of devices and peripherals, and facilitate access to a variety of computer-based services. However, as the distributed networks grow and expand their services, managing the resources and processes in the networks and accounting for the performed services become complex and difficult. Managing the workflow and processing may become especially difficult when the requests pertain to a variety of processing services, and when the requests are issued by multiple users and user groups.
In some distributed networks, resources and processing services are managed using a centralized management approach. For example, a centralized management system may assist in processing requests for scanning documents, and assist in post-scan processing of the scan data. A centralized management system may also be used to detect scanning devices installed in the network and to monitor the operational status of the devices.